


What We Call Normal

by waterbringer (Zashiki_Warashi)



Category: Bleach, InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 02:14:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zashiki_Warashi/pseuds/waterbringer
Summary: Kagome's grandfather probably shouldn't have opted to give such lame excuses about why she couldn't come to the phone to someone who was quite used to making up reasons himself for why he suddenly had to run out of class.





	What We Call Normal

“So…she has what again?”

“Worms, I’m afraid. It’s quite serious.”

“…Last time it was diabetes.”

“Yes, she recovered from that and then contracted worms.”

Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. “Any chance I could talk to her?”

“No, I'm afraid not. She's still bedridden right now, but I'll let her know you called.”

“Alright, I'll try again later.”

“Oh, go ahead and call tomorrow. I have a feeling she'll be well enough to talk then. Goodbye.”

Ichigo found himself listening to a couple beeps before his phone gave way to silence. Sighing, he flipped it closed and made his way to the kitchen. _So that's what it feels like to be on the other end of this._

Since the whole Shinigami thing had started a few months ago, Ichigo had gotten used to throwing out reasons for why he had to suddenly run out of class, or leave in the middle of lunch, or any place, really. A lot of people probably wondered why he needed to get to the bathroom so often. He knew there was an art to making up excuses to cover up what you're really doing.

One would think Kagome's grandfather could think of a better cover story.

Ichigo had to wonder. Was everyone being given all of these health excuses? Probably not a good idea to go with lies like that to someone whose father ran a clinic. Then again, how could anyone buy any excuses like that? The fact people didn't get over diabetes like a cold wasn't exactly top secret information.

Ichigo came to a decision and poked his head into the living room where Isshin was watching the news.

“Hey old man, I'm heading into Tokyo tomorrow. Don't freak out if I'm gone early.”

That turned out to be just odd enough for Isshin to turn around and give Ichigo a confused look. “Why are you headed out there all of a sudden?”

“Something's up at the Higurashi's. I thought I'd better check it out.” Huh. Ichigo didn't get to tell the truth about why he'd randomly run off often anymore. Felt kinda weird.

Isshin blinked at him. “What?”

“It sounds like Kagome is having some health problems.” Better if he figured out what was happening before blowing whatever cover they had going on, weak though it was. “I was just going to stop over and see if she was doing alright.”

“There's something wrong with my adopted daughter?! Clearly all of us should go and-!”

A swift kick to the back of Isshin's head put a quick stop to his soliloquy, though not fast enough for Ichigo, whose face was already bright red. _Is he ever going to let that idea go?!_

“We're not dragging everyone out there! Karin's got practice tomorrow and we're not worrying Yuzu about it! And pull yourself together!”

“Masaki!” Far from calming down, Isshin fawned over the poster that continued to hang in the living room. “Our son is so considerate to his sisters and childhood crush-”

One last punch left Isshin face down on the ground while a fuming Ichigo went upstairs yelling, “I'll be back tomorrow evening! Don’t wait up!” followed by a door slamming.

Rubbing the new lumps on his head, Isshin picked himself up off the floor. After thinking for a moment, he reached for his phone and made a call.

_He was lost._

_He didn't mean to get distracted. It was the first time he'd been in a big city, one last thing the family could do together before Mom was too pregnant (or so Dad said). They should have been just up ahead, but after turning a corner, they were gone._

_The first time they took him to the city, and he managed to lose them. A miserable Ichigo was left desperately running up and down streets, looking for them everywhere._

_It didn’t take too long for him to exhaust himself, leaving him panting on the sidewalk and ready to collapse. Ichigo rubbed his eyes furiously, panic beginning to set in._ I’ll never find them! I’m never going to-

“ _Young man?”_

_The tears Ichigo had felt coming ceased as he looked over to the elderly woman in an old fashioned gray kimono looking in his direction. “Hm?”_

“ _I’m sorry, but do you know where the closest shrine might be?” the woman asked, smiling. “My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, and I could use a youngster’s help.”_

_Ichigo stared for a moment, noticing that the kindly woman's eyes did indeed have a gray film over them. He opened his mouth, ready to tell her that he didn’t know where he was going any better than she did, before pausing._

“ _I went by one a little ways that way,” Ichigo told her, pointing behind him. He'd forgotten about the one he'd run past not a few minutes earlier in his rush to get nowhere. “Would that be okay?”_

“ _Oh yes dear, that would be fine,” the woman beamed. “Any chance you could help me walk there?”_

_Ichigo's first instinct was to refuse. He still had to find his parents, and Tokyo was a big city to be lost in._

_And yet, she clearly needed help now. Who knows, maybe they were over there and he just missed them._

“ _Okay. “_

Kagome sighed into the cup of tea in her hands, content. Last night, she'd had a hot bath and slept in a bed, and now she'd gotten an early breakfast. Everything was calm, quiet, relaxing. It was shaping up to be a wonderful start to her Sunday off.

“Hey, Kagome! What are we doing hanging around here again?”

She felt a muscle in her face give way to an eye twitch. _Easy come, easy go._

“I don't know about you, but I'm on a vacation. That _you_ wanted to tag along on. You’ll just have to find some other way to entertain yourself.” _Not like you’d be doing anything in the feudal era anyway, with everyone else taking some alone time, too._

Ever since everything had started a few months ago, Kagome’s life had gone through some restructuring. And by restructuring, she meant thrown into complete chaos. Constantly fighting demons, missing school, and sleeping on the ground. It wasn’t exactly what she expected to happen in her junior year of high school. Getting the opportunity for downtime was a rarity that had to be treasured.

“And yet I end up needing to do come and do stuff around here half the time anyway. Might as well cut out the middle man,” Inuyasha said. “Whatever. I’m gonna see if I can wake Sota up. Gotta be more interesting than sitting here doing nothing.”

“You do that,” Kagome said, her serene mood pretty much trashed as this point as she concentrated on just finishing her tea at least. _I wonder if Yuka, Ayumi, or Eri are free. Maybe they'd be up for a movie or fast food or something. Should probably dig out my cellphone, it's been awhile since-_

“Hey! What are you looking at?!”

Kagome’s head jerked up at the random outburst, ready to tell Inuyasha off again until she saw him having a stare down with a black cat perched outside the window.

“Um,” she started, not sure how to feel about the non-sequitur everything had just taken. “What are you going on about? It’s just a cat.”

“No way is that ‘just a cat,’” Inuyasha growled, his hands flexing as though readying to attack.

Kagome stood up, hands resting on the tabletop. “What?”

The cat stood motionless for a moment until it said, “Huh. I can’t say I expected this.”

“Alright, what are you?” Inuyasha asked threateningly. “You don’t feel like a demon…”

“Hardly,” he said, raising a paw to scratch one of his ears. “But then, you don’t entirely feel like one either.”

Inuyasha glared. “You-“

“Hey!” Kagome held up a hand. “If you guys are going to get into a fight, could you two take it outside? I don’t want to have to clean up again after the last demon attack that happened in here.”

Inuyasha turned his now more incredulous glare to her. “Is this really the time?!”

“Do you know how many dishes we had to replace? The rice cooker was toast!”

Kagome could have sworn she heard the cat mutter “Again?” to himself.

All came to a halt when they heard an inhuman shriek reverberate through the house.

“What the hell was that?!” Inuyasha yelled.

“And there’s my cue,” the cat said before vanishing.

“Hey!”

“It came from outside. Come on!” Kagome ran to the front door, slipping on some shoes and grabbing her bow and arrows. Inuyasha came up behind her, picking up Tetsusaiga on his way out.

 _I_ really _hope no one notices_ _us_ played in the back of Kagome's head as she thought of what would happen if any policemen noticed them running around with weapons on the street. Slightly more pressing concerns came when Inuyasha suddenly gagged.

“The hell is that?”

“What is it?”

“That stench,” he said, nose wrinkling as they ran. “It smells like a lot like death, but I don't recognize it. Who knows what we're walking into.”

“What about-” Kagome cut herself off when she caught the sight of something in the corner of her eye.

She stopped in her tracks, spotting someone slumped in an alleyway unmoving.

“Hey, what's the hold up? It's this way!”

“Hang on, there's someone here.” Edging closer, Kagome crouched down to get a closer look.

And froze.

_What the-_

Moving quickly, Kagome flipped the body over, showing a familiar face. “Ichigo?”

“What, you know him?”

“Yeah, we go way back. He lives in a different town though, so...” _What on earth is he doing here?!_

“Beats me. The hell's wrong with him?”

Kagome looked closer at Ichigo's limp body. “He's definitely breathing, and he's not injured, but he's not waking up.” She smacked his face lightly. No reaction.

Another inhuman scream along with the unmistakable sound of a sword hitting...something broke the silence.

“Come on, it's this way.”

Not happy about leaving him there but not having any other ideas about what to do, Kagome stood up with a quick glance back before continuing on after Inuyasha.

“What the hell is happening? None of this makes any sense!”

“Up ahead!” Kagome pointed to where a battle was clearly taking place. There were a number of large, black creatures, all with various limbs and proportions, but all of them had two similarities. Each wore a white mask where a face could conceivably be, and all of them had a large hole punched through their bodies.

And they all seemed to be focusing on one figure dressed in black, armed with a sword that looked a lot like a meat cleaver, already taking them on. A couple swings removed the limbs from one of the creatures, followed by a strike and the creature's disintegration.

“Wait, I thought no one used swords in battle around here anymore,” Inuyasha commented.

“We don't,” Kagome said, staring in confusion.

“What do you call _that_ then?”

“I have no idea. Never seen it before. But those things he's fighting...”

“Hm?”

“That's what the smell is coming from, right?” Kagome asked, nocking an arrow and pulling back.

“Yeah, they're definitely it.”

“Well, that's good enough for me,” she said and aimed right at one of the creatures before releasing, the arrow ending up embedded in it's shoulder, causing it to scream in agony and break away from the group, charging at her.

“Oh, no you don't,” Inuyasha taunted, drawing his sword. “Wind Scar!” One attack from the transformed Tetsusaiga sliced the creature in half before it dissolved before their eyes.

That got the attention of the swordsman who had beaten them there, and who was standing in front of them a moment later.

“Hey, what are...” he stilled, eyes widening.

Kagome wondered what deity had decided to change her life into a non-stop series of supernatural events. She also wondered why they decided her friends needed to be included in this.

One of the last things she expected to see today was an old friend wearing an outfit far more likely to be worn in the feudal era than today, swinging a sword around as though he knew how to use it, and slaying monsters in a park in Tokyo.

It's hard to know the exact response one is supposed to have when a person you've known for some years shows up out of the blue with weapons you didn't know they could use, powers they didn't have before, and was at the same monster fighting party you arrived at.

Thus it fell to Inuyasha to break it. “Hey, aren't you unconscious in an alleyway?”

Ichigo stared at him, as though not really knowing what to make of him before shrugging and saying, “Yeah, I have to do that sometimes. So, Kagome,” he said, turning towards her. “You look really good for having a problem with worms, you know?”

Kagome's face immediately began to burn and she brought a hand up to cover it. “You talked to Grandpa, didn't you?”

“You haven't replied to any texts I've sent in months, so I kinda had to.” Ichigo looked at the bow still in her grasp. “You wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the Quincy, would you?”

“With what?”

“Um, never mind, I'll explain later.”

“Hey, guys, I don't mean to interrupt the little reunion you've got going here, but we've still got a problem. Any chance you know what those things are?” Inuyasha jabbed his thumb in the general direction of the creatures, eying Ichigo with a somewhat suspicious stare.

“Yeah, I do,” Ichigo said, looking grim. “They're called Hollows. They're souls that became corrupt and turned into monsters.”

Kagome gasped while Inuyasha's eyes hardened.  _What?!_

“It's okay. Just aim for the masks and they'll move on to the afterlife just fine. That's their weak point.”

“You don't say.” Inuyasha looked ready to start cutting all of them down.

“Hey Kagome, who is this guy anyway?”

“That's Inuyasha. He's impolite, crude, and has no manners.”

“Hey!”

“But he's really good at killing things, so I keep him around.”

“Gee, thanks. You're so generous.”

Ichigo shrugged. “Whatever. That's good enough for me.”

Inuyasha grumbled and jumped into the fray, if only to get away from those two.

 

“ _Here it is.”_

“ _Oh, thank you young man. You run along and play now, you hear?”_

“ _Okay. Have a nice day.”_

_The woman smiled and nodded before beginning to walk across the yard, heading toward a sacred tree._

_Mission done, Ichigo turned to leave to once again restart the hunt for his parents when a voice stopped him._

“ _Who were you talking to?”_

_He almost jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice and only now saw the girl about his own age with long black hair using a broom that seemed much too tall for her on the stone walkway._

“ _What?”_

“ _I said ‘who were you talking to?’”_

_Ichigo shrugged. “I was just helping her walking her over here. I never asked for her name.”_

_The girl blinked at him. “Wait, is she invisible?”_

_He froze. “What?”_

_She shrugged. “I can’t see anyone there. Wait, if she’s invisible, how can you see her?”_

“ _Oh. She’s a ghost then. I guess I didn’t notice.”_

_The girl paused for a few moments and tilted her head, a confused expression on her face. “How do you not notice something like that? And isn’t that scary?”_

_Ichigo shook his head. “I’ve always been able to do that, I think. And ghosts don’t really look much different to us usually. I can't always tell the difference.”_

_Ah,” she nodded, eyes closed. “Hey, I wondering...”_

“ _Hm?”_

“ _You haven't seen a man with dark hair around, have you?”_

_Ichigo gave her a confused look._

“ _We moved here awhile ago because dad was in an accident and...well, he didn't make it.”_

“ _Oh,” Ichigo said. “I'm sorry.”_

“ _It's okay.” She looked up at the sky. “Just, if you see him, could you let me know?”_

“ _Alright.”_

“Eat the Shinigami first!” one yelled before Inuyasha sliced it in half.

“These guys just don't learn, do they?”

Ichigo huffed. “I can't believe I've been turned into the bait.”

“Ah, quit your whining.”

Most of them focused mainly on trying to eat Ichigo. Not recognizing the type of power Inuyasha or Kagome had, they instead zeroed in on the one thing they did get-Shinigami always meant a power boost.

None of them seemed very smart either, as they didn't seem to fully register just how effectively they were being picked off by the other two.

It turned out that sacred arrows were  _very_ effective at destroying them, with even glancing blows from Kagome causing Hollows disintegrating all around them.

It wasn't long until only one Hollow remained, no more intelligent than the rest.

“Ha, I made it! I'm gonna-” 

“Getsuga Tensho!” With one last attach from Ichigo, the mask was cleaved neatly in half, and it vanished. With that, both men sheathed their weapons.

“Well, that's taken care of.”

“Indeed. That was quite impressive. You two can hold your own.”

“You!” Inuyasha pointed at the cat that had reappeared from behind the bushes. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, hey Yoruichi,” Ichigo greeted, holding up a hand. Kagome and Inuyasha stared at him. 

“You know him?” Kagome asked.

“She helped train me,” he replied.

“Wait, she?” Inuyasha raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

“Yes! Yes, I'm sure!” Ichigo snapped, face turning red from a not-so-distant memory while Yoruichi looked smug.

Inuyasha stared at him. “Um, okay, I'll take your word for it.”

“Anyway, I just thought you all might like to know that there were several people headed right in your direction and that you aren't all the most...inconspicuous.”

Inuyasha shrugged. “Eh, it's not like anyone really notices me anyway.”

Less calm was Kagome, who grabbed his arm and started dragging him despite his protests. “Come on, hurry before we get arrested!”

“Hey, what about him?” Inuyasha asked, pointing at Ichigo who continued to just stand there.

“They can't see me, so I'm good. I'll meet you there.”

“Oh come on!”

As they hurried away, Ichigo turned back to Yoruichi. “So, what's up with that guy? Haven't seen anyone with just the ears like that.”

“From what I can tell, he's a hanyou- half human, half demon.”

Ichigo blinked. “Wait, demons exist too? Any reason no one mentioned that to me?”

Yoruichi shrugged. “Not really any reason to. Most try to blend in with humans nowadays, the ones who still live around here anyway. We don't have a lot of association with them. That one acts odd, though.”

Ichigo hummed. “How so?”

“He's clearly not practiced in blending in, yet he's quite familiar with her. It doesn't make sense.”

“Any idea how they met, then?”

“No, but the explanation must be fascinating. We'll have to make them tell us later.”

_They sat by the entrance of the shrine, waiting for the boy's parents to hopefully appear. He had wanted to continue looking around for them himself, but Kagome had put her foot down on that one._

“ _When you're lost, you're supposed to stay in one place. You need to let them find you!”_

_So there they waited, talking about this and that. He went on about how he was going to be a big brother soon, while Kagome told him about her little brother Sota, and what being a big sister was like. It was when she was in the middle of telling him about the first time she'd held him when someone shrieked._

“ _Ichigo! There you are!” A woman with hair that matched his ran over and enveloped in a hug, breathing deeply. “We was so worried about you! Don't wander off ever again, you hear!”_

“ _I'm sorry, mom.” Ichigo felt the tears beginning to come again. He hated it when she was upset._

“ _You found him?!” Who she assumed was his father came over, ruffling his son's hair. “Oh, thank god.” Then he noticed Kagome sitting there as well, not sure what to do now._

“ _Hello. Who are you?”_

_Kagome looked up at him while Ichigo and his mother calmed down and wiped their eyes. “Oh, I live here and help out with some things with the shrine.”_

_The man smiled and turned to his son. “Aren't you going to introduce us to your new girlfriend?”_

_The woman scoffed and lightly smacked his arm. “Dear!”_

_Ichigo, not knowing what else to do, said, “Um, this is...” and trailed off._

_The man gasped. “You never properly introduced yourselves? It's the most important step before-” A giggle from the woman cut him off while the children stared at each other before shrugging and giving a slight bow._

“ _My name is Kagome Higurashi. It's nice to meet you.”_

“ _I'm Ichigo Kurosaki. It's very nice to meet you, too.”_

 


End file.
